There’s nothing more thrilling than watching offspring learn to read. Once they’ve figured out how to decode that jumble of letters, and cautiously sound out the words that form a sentence, whole worlds open up in print.

Finding the right books for a new reader — and showing enough patience to sit and listen as the child laboriously sounds out the words — goes a long way to creating a lifelong bibliophile.

Lucy & Company, by local author/illustrator Marianne Dubuc, is worth checking out if you’re trying to find books that will encourage your budding reader — or books that will hold the interest of a preschooler too young to decode letters but old enough to “read” the pictures.

Originally published in French as Lucie et cie, this new English edition is divided into three separate stories — The Snack, The Treasure Hunt and The Hatchlings — giving it the added advantage of looking like a chapter book, something young readers are usually eager to tackle since they appear more advanced than a simple picture book.

Dubuc begins by introducing us to Lucy, a little girl who decides to climb a tree and perch on a thick branch to eat her snack. She is joined there by Marcel, a mouse who has a lettuce sandwich; Henry the rabbit, who arrives with a basket of hazelnuts; Dot the turtle, whose snack fell into the river but who is happy to share in the others’ largesse; and Adrian the snail, initially mistaken for one of Henry’s hazelnuts.

The shock of hearing what they assumed was a nut wail “NOOOO! Don’t eat me!” prompts the new friends to drop their snacks — all except Marcel’s lettuce sandwich, which they then divide among the five of them because “sharing snack time with a new friend is a real treat!”

In the next story, Lucy finds a treasure map and sets out with her new friends to dig for treasure. (Adrian, lacking the legs required to count steps as they follow instructions on the map, spends most of the time hitching a ride on top of Lucy’s head.) All goes well, except for another case of mistaken identity — this time confusing the large brown shape of a slumbering bear with that of a rock behind which the treasure is hidden. The treasure turns out to be a gift for Henry, whose birthday the friends celebrate with cake and a party.

In the final story/chapter, Adrian the snail finds three large eggs and tries to hatch them, without success. Nevertheless, when “three sharp-beaked baby birds break out of their shells,” they imprint upon Adrian, calling him Mama. And when the friends try to find a warm place to shelter the hatchlings, Anton the bear again enters the picture — this time viewed as Papa by the little birds, who snuggle up with the big brown bear and promptly fall asleep.

Simple stories and colourful and cartoonish art make for easy-to-read fare that is ideal for the very young.

Lucy & Company

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